Rudd kills the great barrier reef

In a brave political move yesterday, Rudd has decided to introduce a policy of destroying the Great Barrier Reef. Or so our lefty friends tell us. The ALP policy of reducing national carbon emissions by 5% by 2020 (over 2000 levels) has been met with much sadness and gnashing of teeth by the climate warm-mongers.

Though not everybody thinks the ALP is too soft. Andrew Bolt thinks that the 5% reduction is too much, and he points out that it is actually a 34% reduction per person from 1990 levels.

The political response has been mixed. The Liberals are thinking about it. The Greens are not impressed, and want more done. The LDP is not impressed, and wants less done.

And in more scary climate news, Al Gore says the entire north polar ice cap may well be gone in five years (go to 1:25 in the video). Of course, not everybody is scared and the debate goes on.

I get sick of saying this, and apologies to those who have read this over and over again, but once more for the record …

I used to work with the GBRMPA (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority) many many years ago. Back then everyone knew what was killing the reef, and it was not controversial: it was the fertilizer run-off from the farms, and the reef was dying.

Fast forward to 2008, and all the reports say that GLOBAL WARMING is killing the reef (with a small footnote about fertilizer run-off).

These scientists are just chasing the funding dollar. They will get more funding if their proposal has GLOBAL WARMING written in big letters.

.. Sorry about writing the same comment in every thread on AGW and the GBR, but someone has to put this scientific fraud on the record.

A meteorologist, on the radio, was saying that Australia had gone through the coldest year since 2001, BUT that if we’d had these temperatures 15 years ago, we’d have called it the hottest year on record. I wonder if that means temperatures are going down? The northern hemisphere is suffering a very cold winter, with snow in New Orleans! And Austrian ski-fields having lots of snow. So what is going on?
And an item in the ‘Oz’ has people who live on the reef, like Ben Cropp, saying they’ve not noticed any change in the past 50 years- certainly no dying from heat.

Rudd and his government are all popularity politics and pragmatism. This means compromise.

I’d say he will compromise on just about everything.
Compromise logically leads to poor results eg/ If A is false but B is true, halfway between A and B will be false. If A and B are both false then half A and B will be false. Compromise is not about determining the truth, it’s just a pathetic attempt to please everyone and IMO refelcts modern ideology that reality cannot be known eg/ Kant’s belief that conceptualization involves distortion, logical posivitist theories or modern linguistic analysis theories.

But on the upside from my perspective, compromise usually makes everybody unhappy.

So I’m hoping the Rudd government loses popularity from both sides on this issue. He can piss off the indoctrinated emotionalist environmental ignoramuses and he can piss of business people at the same time.
It really is about time ignorant Australians stopped worshipping this absolutely pathetic government and its intellectually retarded and immoral actions.

Then hopefully this will in turn lead to people actually using their brains and investigating issues themselves. – Hopefully.

“POZNAN, Poland – The UN global warming conference currently underway in Poland is about to face a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore. Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.”

TimR — I linked to the exact same article in this very post, under “debate goes on”. I thought the link was interesting for it’s other links & quotes… but it has been pointed out to me that it has problems.

One problem which I find concerning is that there was a scientist who asked to be taken off the list because he says he hasn’t “turned against the UN”, but he has been left on the list. That’s not good.

I find it very easy to believe that many scientists have published articles questioning certain elements of the main story. But that does NOT mean they are rejecting the general theme of AGW… just that they are debating the specifics.

Whoops.
Actually that article is a good example of just how politicized this debate has become.
Because the article is concerned with how many scientists are for or against the AGW theory. ie: the article is about establishing a consensus. And unfortunately in this day of politics where powers are un-checked, it is possible for governments to regulate entire industries as opposed to simply persecuting actual polluters who have violated property rights. Hence scientific consensus does matter to politics even though it shouldn’t.

I agree that many scientists have slightly different takes on the issues and specifics depending on their own specialities. And this could create problems with lumping them into one or other of the categories. In addition, a scientist’s individual political ideas will depend on other non physical science elements. I know many scientists because I am one (by day) and many of them are typical lefties who whole-heartedly support government interventions generally – this attitude is prevalent even amongst research employees in the private sector. And it’s not surprising considering that government has done its best to monopolize and control science and education over the years. Research scientists usually look to state run universities and research facilities for work because they are so common. It’s hard for private research to start because they don’t have the advantage of tax payer’s money and the research industry is heavily regulated. I believe scientists are therefore biased towards supporting these government institutions – In fact, many wrongly believe the research done in government institutions wouldn’t exist without the state. I’d argue the opposite and say relevent research would increase.
Scientists also haven’t considered the harmful consequences of state research – that monopoly science often stagnates the theories of the day – new ideas have a harder time getting any exposure when there is only one research grant provider controlled by those who grew up basing their life’s work on outdated theories.

In addition, due to various (and false) mind/body type dichotomies prevalent in today’s thinking – many scientists believe in “knowledge for knowledge’s sake” implying that knowledge without a practical application is useful (somehow) and also implying that application (technology) is somehow harmful to theory (science). So these scientists are more likely to be sympathetic to government whom they believe can provide this ideal.
I personally believe that science without technology is basically useless until someone finds an application. So I think its more efficient to let potential applications drive research.

I think Tim meant that some people think that research wouldn’t exist without the state. Those people are wrong- Viagra was developed by a private firm, etc.
Equally, though, governments can fund things like telescopes, and CERN’s High-speed Collider.
Without taxes taking money from us, Unis might be private research bodies, and the investors might still give funds for things like colliders, etc.
Is that a fair summary, Tim?

People value scientific research. There’s no reason to think this would disappear if more research was privatised.

For some interesting insights on the inefficiencies of US university systems (similar to ours) I’d recommend Thomas Sowell.

Science and technology go hand in hand. So that’s why people will value research (if they want labour saving devices, which they ought to because these will extent their lifespan and quality of life).

Currently in the university system we have people doing ridiculous types of useless research in social science areas. People graduating with PhDs who only know how to run a survey eg/ I know of someone who got their PhD determining what foods are easy to eat while driving a car.
We also have too many researchers in areas such as theoretical physics claiming things like all particles are made of strings etc. Even though they have no way to prove this and have abandoned inductive methods – opting for thinking up theories prior to observations. (I do think physics research is important but I think scientific standards in our culture are low and that there are fairer voluntary and more effective private solutions to this research).

There are private solutions to larger research projects if people use their imagination, responsibility and are entrepreneurial which is exactly what the private sector encourages by necessity as opposed to the stagnation, conformity and political correctness of the public sector. Firstly you’d have more money in circulation if taxes were lowered due to privitisation, Businesses would have more to invest. For larger projects you could fund raise, co-operate with multiple investors, get loans, have voluntary taxes etc. The US could still have got to the moon. The socialised Soviets were always doomed to lose that race.

I think the private sector would provide more valuable technology because private research would be more dependant on making money (value) in the long term. In addition monopolised government research makes it less likely that new theories would get an opportunity to show their merits.

I’m not saying good research cannot be done in the public sector. Firstly scientists don’t have a choice and often have to get public sector jobs. Secondly, people are individuals and the quality of their work and their dedication to this work is up to them. But I do think public research is not as effective overall.

It’s important to realise we also have an excessive regulation problem. I work in cell biology research and sometimes I feel like I have to fill out three forms and then get them witnessed just to use the toilet.
eg/ 100 years ago when anaesthesia was discovered, it was tested on humans immediately, same with penecillin. It was used widely by the public very shortly afterwards. And saved countless lives.
Today penecillin would take about 10 years to get to market and it would probably fail toxicity testing because it kills rodents.
Quality assuarance and safety are very important in all industries but governments do not need to stick their noses in trying to force a “one size fits all” regulatory system on us, unless the company is violating my right to life. But if they did do that, or if they wanted to make me work on something I thought was immoral, I’d take them to court under crim or contract law (not workplace regulations) and quit anyway.

If you want to understand more you need to research the history of science.
There are many cases where theory alone was useless to humans. eg/ atomic theory (ie: matter is made of atoms) is a very old theory. Only in the 19th and 20th centuries do we see it applied.
You will find supposed rebuttals to my argument eg/ some (like Carl Sagan) correctly point out you need the theory (science) before the technology eg/ There’s no way to invent a radio if you don’t know that light is an electro magnetic wave, or eg/ isolated indigenous people don’t care about sanitation because they don’t know about the existence of microbes.
However these arguments are again falsely assuming research would not be done by the private sector. And as I have said, much theory lies dormant for years and years even without government science – with it the problems increase, not diminish.

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